


Emergence (An Awakening) From Ice

by cataclysmique



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, BAMF Pepper Potts, BAMF Tony Stark, Civil War Team Iron Man, F/M, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) Feels, Peter is a Little Shit, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Precious Peter Parker, Protective Peter Parker, References to Depression, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-21 17:17:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14919581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cataclysmique/pseuds/cataclysmique
Summary: Captain America may have emerged from the ice (but only in theory, Tony muses.) Iron Man will awaken -- starting with opening his eyes to the absolute bullshit that was the Avengers (so much for a team, he scoffs, eyeing the IV line attached to his inner elbow and the respirator inflating his lungs.)





	1. frigidity and flames --- a prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The usual '' I don't own anything here but the plot" spiel. I just really like the characters, like, a lot. Sue me (please don't.)

He can’t remember what the cold is supposed to feel like anymore. He knows what the word implies, logically: the absence of heat.  
Surely, then, the frigidity of this frozen, forgotten bunker --- a relic of a time hardly remembered by the world, lost to both memory and map, and situated in a literal icy wasteland --- should render his own body ice; freeze his flesh, turn the very blood in his veins solid.  
And yet he burns: his skin is on fire, his bones blaze, and it feels as if he is swallowing embers; exhaling ash. He is unsure whether this inferno is pain, anger, or terror. Each rasping breath sends a new flare of agony throughout his torso. He is envisaging devastation to an already compromised chest --- a shattered sternum, ribcage crushed, shards of plastic and bone and _metal lodged in his atrial septum, shredding his heart---._  
Another rattling breath. Another violent wave of white-hot pain that darkens his vision, threatens to drown him and drag him under.  
He almost lets it, closing his eyes with a feeling of twisted comfort: it’s better off this way; better off without him. They would be safe.  
But then he sees _PepperRhodeyHappyFRIDAYPeter_ and he panics, _selfishly, because he can’t let them be happy without him to drag them down._  
He does not possess the strength to lift his head, rather, it feels like he is becoming part of the frozen concrete beneath him, the weight of the dead suit slowly dragging him under. He glances downward, and in his periphery he makes out the image of twisted metal and an overwhelming slash of scarlet: not that of his suit, but of his own blood.  
His thoughts are becoming harder to grasp --- he is reminded of fish; tiny ones, in a pond shadowed by overhanging foliage. They become his thoughts: he can see their shapes, but not what makes them singular --- they are thoughts, but he does not know what they _are,_ and when he tries to grasp one it slips from his clutches and disappears into the shadows.  
_Huh,_ he thinks, the cracked ceiling of the bunker above him fading to black. _Dying, and all I can think of is fishHappyPeterFRIDAYRhodeyPepper…_

__

 

__

...Pepper.

__


	2. nalbuphine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings:  
> infrequent coarse language, discussion of drug dependence, minor description of medical procedures. a lot of hand-wavey medicine and science, because i don't have a phd.  
> there was two hours of delving into medical journals to research the use of opioids in sedation, how they affect a person, and their side effects when paired with different drugs. it may have been overkill.  
> thanks for the amazing reception to the prologue; hopefully this chapter is what you had hoped it would be! constructive criticism is graciously welcomed.

It isn’t the first time he wakes -- fleeting memories of terrible pain smothered by the horrifying nothingness of fentanyl; his chest a gaping cavity of exposed organs: his wretched, scarred heart, ribs split apart and outstretched -- the screeching of monitors; people shouting: a cacophony of voices raised in panic; his name: _‘Tony, Tony,...Tony!’ --- Pepper’s_ voice, her scream, a final, perpetual tone from the monitor. Darkness, detachedness.  
It’s not the second time he’s awoken (and not the first time he’s died, either --- are there awards for that? Some kind of recognition? Another prize; another trophy to sit on the shelf, to try and convince him he is _good_ , he is _worthy?_ ) but it is the first time he’s actually here, and not lost in some hellscape between death and agony. Of course, it’s dark, but his eyelids are heavy, and he does not possess the determination to convince them to open. Until he hears her voice --- she’s reading aloud, presumably to him, and although the text isn’t notably inspiring (she’s reading the minutes from what he assumes is the latest SI board meeting aloud, pausing every few sentences to describe to him, quite colourfully, how idiotic a particular decision or member is), it’s the sound of her voice that convinces him to open his eyes, blinking blearily, her name on his tongue.  
He goes to speak, but he’s stopped by the respirator jammed in his throat. He doesn’t see her lunge forward to stop him before he rips it out, but then he smiles at her, peaceful.  
“Pepper…” he breathes, reaching out to touch her face as she stills, tears in her eyes. They are frozen for a moment, before his face turns ashen, lips blue, and he _gasps._ He tries to breathe, desperately wills his body to suck in air, but his lungs remain still, refusing to inflate. Pepper scrambles for the respirator, eyes panicked as she forcibly parts his lips and replaces the mouthpiece. Her mouth is moving but he can’t hear above the ringing in his ears, until suddenly she is yelling at him, hysteria lacing her tone. “--half your lungs gone, give it time, more than ten seconds...oh my god, you’re going to kill me, why do you think it was there, _christ, for a genius--_ ”  
He is silent for a moment, his brain on overdrive, panic still raging through his system as he screams _I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,_ but then he laughs -- at himself, at Pepper, at her exasperation; his own idiocracy, his inability to stay away from ICU --- and it may be manic, a touch delirious, and _fuck,_ it _hurts_ , but it smothers the anxiety that threatens to envelop him.  
Pepper is there, her cold fingers wiping at his cheeks (is he crying?) and a soft smile on her lips. She is perfection, he muses, as the laughter fades. Her eyes are red, her hair is twirled into an unbrushed knot on her head, she is wrapped in a blackened, grease-stained MIT hoodie, and she is perfect.  
“Tony,” she breathes, running her fingers through his hair, and he catches a shadow of disbelief in her eyes, as if she didn’t expect to be able to do that again. “I love you so much.” In those words there are more: _I missed you, I never thought I’d see you again, I’ll never let you go, because I won’t survive not seeing you laugh again._ In her eyes there is relief, there is happiness, but there is also fear and fury.  
He smiles gently, catching her hand in one of his own. His grip is weak; his hand shakes as he struggles to squeeze hers, and it takes all of his concentration to hold it up, but he holds her like a lifeline -- and remembering her scream as he faded into blackness, he supposes she is. She always has been.  
He struggles to speak around the cold plastic of the respirator, but he knows she understands as her eyes soften and she ducks down to kiss his cheek.  
“I love you,” he whispers, before the fentanyl reclaims him and he slips back into sleep. 

*

This time, there’s no respirator, and his mind is clearer -- for example, he tells his emotions to harden the fuck up. His emotions basically give him the finger, and he finds himself blinking away tears at the sight of Pepper cross-legged at the end of his bed, tablet in hand and phone shouldered against her ear. She continues working for a few minutes, fingers tapping a staccato rhythm against her thigh, before she catches sight of him smiling at her from the corner of her eye and extricates herself from the call.  
“Hey.” His voice is raspy from disuse ( _how long?_ , he puzzles, before pushing the thought away) and the words slice at his throat, but her eyes light up and he persists; “Missed you, Pep.”  
Pepper laughs, and he swears his heart skips a beat. That, or it’s another heart attack, but he’s going to go with the less dire, more embarrassing option.  
“I missed you too, Mr. Stark. The board’s been harassing me, now that you’re awake I can finally get them off my ass,” she quips, standing and pulling a chair to sit beside him. She leans in and presses a kiss to his lips.  
He freezes momentarily, stuck somewhere between _I love this woman_ and _aren’t we on a break?_. Tony voices the second thought, and Pepper’s brow is drawn into a frown, eyes downcast. She leans back in her chair, silent. When her gaze finally meets his after what feels like an eternity ( _why did you say that,_ he screams at himself, _you hurt her_ ) there is shame in her eyes, and confusion swirls through his mind.  
“I can’t believe...I didn’t support --- I should have supported you, Tony. There’s been so many times you’ve been _hurting_ , and you’ve been struggling, and you’ve been terrified, and I just ran away and left you alone because I was stupid and selfish and didn’t recognise that you needed someone to help you, Tony...I’m so sorry, and I love you so much. I really want---can we forget about the break?” Her voice wavers, and he realises just how shaken she really is. She is devastated and exhausted and terrified and furious, and all because of him. She doesn’t deserve it.  
“Why? I’m a mess, Pep. You deserve so much more.” The words drive glass into his heart and he struggles to breathe because he _loves_ her, and the thought of existence without her isn’t so much agonising as it is pointless.  
Pepper shakes her head, face drawn in a concerned frown. “No, Tony,” she pauses, struck again by how blind he is to his own goodness, how he fails again and again to realise how bleak the world would be without him. “You’re you. That’s why.” 

*

He’s gazing down at diagrams of his own torso with a sort of robotic detachedness, which fits ironically well, considering he’s basically more metal and plastic than flesh at this point. Pepper is beside him, and the fear has returned to her eyes, but Tony is already planning, algorithms and formulae and blueprints materialising in his mind.  
He taps at the tablet, and the diagram becomes holographic; a manipulatable cross section which only illuminates how thoroughly _fucked_ he is in stark detail. The doctor’s prognosis rings in his ears, which doesn’t help the rising tide -- screw it, tsunami -- of panic that threatens. 

Three months.

It’s obviously not going to cut it, and hell, he’s already planning -- has contingencies in place for this sort of thing, knew it was coming -- he has ideas on how to extend his life expectancy beyond the next ninety-one days, but they’re just theoretical. He needs to get to his lab, and _shit_ , why does he feel like he’s going to throw up?  
“Hey, Pep? I--I might need a bucket or something,” he mutters, confused. Sure, he was sort of freaking out, but now he’s feeling downright nauseous, and he’s been feeling fine on these pain meds. Some crazy concoction of NSAIDs to reduce the cardiorespiratory side effects he now had to think about, the doctors had told him. They were effective enough, and opiates were sort of dangerous territory for him, anyway.  
As if he’s suddenly not feeling shit enough, his gut lurches, and it very quickly seems as if his stomach is trying to digest itself. He tries draw his knees to his chest in an attempt to quell the pain, but quickly decides as agonising as self-digestion is, the absolute mess that is his chest wins on the misery scale. He looks over to Pepper standing halfway out of the room, taking a plastic bucket from a nurse with a thankful smile.  
“Pepper, could...could you grab me a doctor? I think something’s up.”  
Moments later, a doctor steps into his room, brow furrowed. Her dark hair is drawn back into an elaborate braid, and a pen sits behind one ear. “Dr. Zara Khalil,” she greets, attention immediately drawn to the monitor displaying Tony’s vitals. Her hand moves to the pen as she regards the screen, and she taps it against her lip absently, arms crossed.  
“Your vitals aren’t consistent with infection, Mr. Stark, which would be my first guess considering your nausea and stomach cramps, so we’re dealing with something else.” Her dark eyes are intense as she considers him, and he feels oddly bare under her gaze. He looks away as his stomach spasms again, the movement jostling his chest and sending a wave of white-hot pain throughout his body.  
He groans softly, hand blindly seeking out Pepper. Her fingers curl around his, and she moves to brush his hair back.  
For a moment, he is still, comforted by Pepper’s presence. Sure, his stomach is still trying to eat itself, and he feels at any moment he’s going to throw the remnants up, but Pepper’s here, so it’s okay.  
He is abruptly very cold.  
To be honest, it’s all feeling vaguely familiar --- like, fifteen years ago, haze-of-alcoholism vague, but familiar. If he’s right, it’ll only be the seventh occurrence, which is seven times to many.  
“Hey, doc,” he starts, teeth chattering, letting go of Pepper’s hand momentarily to clutch at the bucket. “What’s the typical sedative used here? Fentanyl, right?”  
He knows he’s got it before she even shakes her head to the negative. “Fentanyl was too risky to employ for you, given its possibility to reduce cardiorespiratory function. Your heart and lungs are compromised enough on their own. We used nalbuphine.”  
It’s relatively rare, but it would make perfect sense to use it on him --- because opioid (and everything else under the sun) addicted Tony Stark wasn’t publicised. He (Obadiah) hid it well.  
“So, yeah, that makes sense, but nalbuphine has a nasty little side effect on opioid-dependent people.” He lets that hang for a moment, and then he feels Pepper’s furious gaze on him. “Okay, it was like twenty years ago. Maybe ten. Pre-Afghanistan, at least!”  
Pepper is glaring at him. If he wasn’t afraid of his internal organs falling out of holes that shouldn’t be there should he decide to stand, he’d be running away right now. Hell, he’s strongly considering it, lost organs and all.  
Doctor Khalil seems to take pity on him. “Nalbuphine isn’t used on previous addicts because it’s an opioid sedative that forces the patient to go through withdrawal. Usually, it wouldn’t be an issue if the patient is on opioid painkillers like morphine, because they’re weaned off it anyway. However, Mr. Stark is on a course of NSAIDs, again to lessen the likelihood of further cardiorespiratory stress, so essentially ---”  
“Cold turkey,” he grimaces, before retching into the bucket. 

*

The hologram revolves slowly on its axis, casting a faint blue light in the dark hospital room that reminds him vaguely of the arc reactor. The sapphire glow isn’t nearly brilliant enough, but it’s still comforting in a familiar way. With one hand, he manipulates it until he’s staring at his own holographic heart, kept beating by some rudimentary pacemaker. The pacemaker itself would never withstand the electronic stress of prolonged usage of iron man suit, and as it is, there is no way his heart will keep beating if he steps inside.  
At first, the solution had seemed simple, if not a little psychologically damaging. Just chop up his chest again, stick another arc reactor in, and Bob’s your aunty’s mother’s cousin. What’s a little trauma, twelve pounds of metal, and reduced lung capacity when your heart is beating and you can fly around in a fancy gold-titanium-alloy suit?  
Apparently, it wasn’t that simple, and the arc reactor wouldn’t be able to actually keep his heart going. Whilst he usually takes the impossible as a personal challenge, it wasn’t feasible: whereas before the reactor had powered an electromagnet, it would have to become his heart, replacing the degrading tissue ( _three months before it died_ ). Even if he figured out how to synthesise an honest-to-god reactor-powered, iron-man-cooperative _artificial heart_ , he was pretty sure three months was a bit of a stretch.  
“FRIDAY,” he whispers, brows drawn in concentration. Okay, it was totally crazy. Would probably be what tipped him right over the edge and finally get him sent to the looney bin. Pepper would lose her mind if she found out, which was probably evidence enough that it was a very, very bad, very dumb, idea.  
But _shit_ , he was _dying_. He wasn’t going to do that to her again.  
“Create project on my personal server: _EXTREMIS 2.0._ ”


End file.
